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Benin or Cote d'Ivoire

Two countries side by side across the same rows as the full comparison. A dash means the value is missing: fields are not filled with guesses. about the data

Benin and Cote d'Ivoire across the reference rows
BeninCote d'Ivoire
Salary in IT——
Citizenship3 years5 years
Partner can work——
Parents——
Petsno troubleno trouble
Pet limitno limitno limit
Quarantine—no
Residence permit fee250 000 XOF—
Rent, 2 bedrooms$ 332 · estimate$ 842 · estimate
Basket$ 28,9—
Life expectancy60.9662.11
Homicides/100k1.13—
Natural hazards, 0–103.12.9

How the two sets of routes differ

Long-stay routes in this reference: Benin — 8, Cote d'Ivoire — 12. Types present in both: work and study. Cote d'Ivoire adds: family, investment and retirement.

Fees, thresholds and deadlines

Benin: fees range from 32,798 to 800,000 XOF. Routes with a published decision deadline: 6; the shortest is 1 days. Cote d'Ivoire: fees range from 35,000 to 300,000 XOF. Routes with a published decision deadline: 10; the shortest is 7 days.

Beyond the first permit

Permanent status: Benin after 6 years; the other country publishes no term. Citizenship: Benin after 3 years, Cote d'Ivoire after 5 years.

Benin in brief

Benin is noticeably calmer than the region's reputation suggests: 1.13 homicides per 100,000 people (World Bank, 2017 data — the authorities publish nothing more recent for the country), political stability −0.4 and control of corruption −0.24 on the World Bank scale from −2.5 to +2.5. The strong points end there: life expectancy 60.96 years, health spending of 46.5 dollars per person a year, basic water access for 69.6 per cent of the population, and mean PM2.5 of 39.66 micrograms per cubic metre — nearly ten times the WHO guideline. Road deaths run at 24.8 per 100,000. Natural risk is moderate overall (3.1 out of 10 on INFORM), but flooding scores 6.7. The immigration framework has been rewritten from scratch and simplified: law No. 2025-15 of July 2025 and the decree of March 2026 left two resident statuses instead of three — an ordinary card for three years and a privileged one for ten. Two rules are worth knowing in advance: silence from the authority at the end of the decision period counts as a refusal, and a visa refusal cannot be appealed at all — three days are allowed to leave. Fees for nationals of ECOWAS states and for everyone else differ by a factor of five or more. There is no separate work permit: the labour directorate endorses the contract with a foreigner, and that is the employer's obligation.

Cote d'Ivoire in brief

Côte d'Ivoire is the largest economy in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), a Francophone country with its local currency (the CFA franc) pegged to the euro, and the world's largest cocoa producer. The official capital under the Constitution is Yamoussoukro, but the government, ministries and most foreign missions are in practice located in the economic capital, Abidjan, which remains the country's main centre of employment, business activity and infrastructure. As a founding member of ECOWAS, Côte d'Ivoire grants citizens of the community the right of free entry, residence and economic activity under protocols A/P.1/5/79, A/SP.1/7/86 and A/SP.2/5/90; for other foreigners the main mechanism for long-term stay is the carte de résident, issued through the Office National de l'État Civil et de l'Identification (ONECI). Malaria is present throughout the territory; the apostille is not used as a form of document legalisation. Fewer automated country indicators are available than for most of the region's neighbours, which limits the statistical part of the overview.

Other comparisons

Benin or… Nigeria · Rwanda · Tunisia · Algeria · Tanzania · Kenya · South Africa · Angola

Cote d'Ivoire or… Gabon · Madagascar · Sierra Leone · Uganda · Zambia · Eswatini · Lesotho · Mozambique

More on each: Benin · Cote d'Ivoire. Build your own comparison — up to four countries

This material is for reference and is not legal, tax or immigration advice. Visa rules, tax thresholds and prices change. Before deciding anything, check the official sources and consult a licensed professional in the relevant country.